Erasure and Affirmation (Hypernaturals 11)

Head of Crew

"You done with him?" Helen asked.

"We are. No other marks. One dart entry point. That is all." Jessica reported.

Helen came over to me, hands on hips, and looked up at me.

"Are you ready?" She asked

"For?" I asked

"To hear what I think about your latest boneheaded stunt?" Helen asked.

"Oh. Sure. Go ahead." I said and assumed a posture of waiting.

Helen looked at me.

I looked back, waiting for the flames. My posture made it clear I was not in any way repentant for what I did.

Helen heaved a huge sigh. "Is there even any point?" She asked.

"You need to let it out." I said.

"I need to do a lot of things. One of them is scream. Another is to take you to bed. Screaming and screwing are in an equal measure in my head right now."

"Well, then scream first. Jessica. Morgan. Angel. Denise. Nakoma. Vera. You all want to yell at me. Go ahead. I'll wait for you all to get it out of your systems." I said.

And Helen let me have it.

In the worst conceivable way. The one goddamn way I was not ready for.

She collapsed to the floor and started sobbing. Out and out gasping for air sobbing. I was horrified.

"No. No. Yell." I said, getting next to her and taking her to me. "Scream. Tell me what a dumb fuck I am. Not... This..."

She did not answer. She sobbed on in my arms. I looked up to see everyone crying. Mom... Everyone.

"I want to kill her." Helen finally said.

"So say we all." Jessica quoted from 'Battlestar Galactica'. No one gave her geek points, because it was not that kind of moment.

When the heaving subsided, Helen said dabbed at her face with a cloth Morgan gave her. "I was so angry. I raced back here. Left poor Rachel to find her way back home. I wanted to tear you a new one. Call you every name there is. But... It's her. Those fucking Sirens baited you with her. I know why you had to do that. I have hated her for years, and I did not even know who she is. Now she is just there. We HAVE her. I can't kill her."

"No." I agreed quietly. "Not yet. We have to know what she did with the sample. We can't have Vampire DNA, especially not MINE, running around out there. I do not say that to be egotistical, but I am one of two Vampires like me in the world that we know about."

"And so... This. I had to do something. I made a fool of myself." Helen said.

"Helen. You did not make of fool of yourself." Morgan said. "You just proved what we all know: That you love him. We all do. You are feeling exactly the same thing I am. I cannot tell you my rage at this Sandy person."

"Because you, my dumb love, still think it is your fault." Jessica pointed out.

"It is not now, nor was it ever Morgan's fault. Never. Ever. I was the one that walked into that trap too." I said. "Eyes wide open. Same as here, except I had backup this time. Vera. She did awesome."

Helen looked up at Vera. "Thank you. Bottom of my heart, Vera. Thank you. I owe you. We all do."

Angel wrapped an arm around Vera's shoulders. "My babe."

Denise crossed her arms. "When Cert left the Crew, not under her own power, we were left leaderless. We all sort of generally reported into Victoria. That was too much for her to have to deal with, so she asked me to take Lead. I said 'fuck no'. I saw what that kind of shit did to Cert, and she promised me that it would not be permanent, that she has changes in mind. She promised me Boot Camp would be real, and it is, although we really need to design a facility for it. Point being: I took it. A way to burn off MY guilt faster. As head of Crew, I am assigning a Crew member to full time be with Adrian. No more being unguarded. I am not dissing you her Vera: You were amazing. I want him covered by a trained killer, though. What Adrian just said. He is one of two of his kind in the entire world. He keeps walking into bone headed into shit like this. Helen: You are Council. You can't do it. Jessica: we need you at New Ninovan. That's too important to the future of all of us. Morgan: You'll be part of the Crew on this, but you have a life too."

Morgan nodded her assent, rather too docilely I thought until Morgan said "We can put you in the front bedroom. Where I turned."

"That will work." Denise said.

I looked around at all the faces. No one even acted remotely taken aback that Denise, the new head of Crew, just assigned herself to my protection detail.

"Adrian goes nowhere without Crew or you. If for ANY reason you and/or I cannot be there, Anne and Carol are the backup team. I will let them know. And Victoria. She will not fight me on this. She put me in charge. This is what she gets." Denise pronounced.

I stood, pulled Helen up, held her to me. Like Vera and her vest earlier, now I am the one standing around naked in a room full of clothed people, and no one is noticing or caring. Why would they? Nothing they have not seen before, yet it suddenly felt a little odd.

I pulled Morgan over to my other side and said to her "Not your fault. Never your fault. Stop it. Besides: I have something I need you to do."

"Oh?" Morgan asked.

"The paper. You have it, Vera?"

"Sure." She said and pulled it out of the inside of her vest. She handed it to Morgan. Morgan read. Looked at me with understanding. "We need to find Ginger and Wyatt."

"If they are still alive. Yes." I said.

"Why do you think they might be dead?" Denise asked. Morgan wordlessly handed her the two papers. Denise scanned, said "Oh."

Nakoma, next to Denise, looked at the paper. "What are you all seeing here? A Vampire senses thing?" She asked.

"Both pages are printed. On a printer. No signature." Morgan said. "If that was really from them, they would have signed it. Not printed their names. At the very least, initialed it." Morgan told her. She looked over at me. "You saw that right away."

"I did. Part of why I made sure when Vera got into my car, I did not kick her out. I knew I needed backup. I felt bad about taking her into danger, but... Well. You know. She would not have gone peacefully anyway, and I did not have time."

"The Sirens are suspicious of our relationship to them." Jessica said.

"They should be." Helen said.

"If Ninovan is any example, Sirens and Vampires can get along." Nakoma pointed out. "Simi and Tobey?"

"I do not think that all Sirens are as happy with developments like that as they would say. They cut out Ginger and Wyatt. Isolated them. Now this attack today, baited with the perfect bait? Sirens are still plotting against Vampires." Denise said.

"They went to significant pains to try and conceal their exact identities. The four Sirens in the isolation garments are no one I have ever met before. They are not going to be happy that we took control of the building so fast and got samples of everything. That Van was waiting, and I wager it had all sorts of cleanup gear in it. Their plan was to do something with me, then cover up everything. They worked really hard to block Vampire high end senses with all the site prep. If I scent them again, I will know them, and especially the two I made bleed." I said.

"Reminds me. Here." Denise handed a plastic case to my Mom. "Two darts. The one that hit him. One that appears to have hit a metal railing or something. It is full, the needle bent to prevent it leaking out. Whatever went into Adrian, it is in there. I have many more of these, and they are being hotshot to a Crew lab for analysis. Blood too."

"Many more?" Nakoma asked.

Denise gave Nakoma an evil smile. "They hit your dad once. They fired many times to achieve that. The place was littered with these."